


Daft Emotions

by namenlos



Category: Daft Punk
Genre: Daft Punk Love, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Robot Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 18:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1521365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/namenlos/pseuds/namenlos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy-Manuel is a human brain in a robotic body, and falls in love with Thomas, the robot assigned to assist Guy and learn about his human nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daft Emotions

Guy-Manuel’s body had been burned beyond recognition, the end result of a horrific car accident. The doctor assigned to him, Dr. Bertrand, had to work quickly. Considering the heavily damaged state the man was in, it wouldn’t be feasible to keep him alive for very long with such horribly burned flesh. Guy-Manuel was deemed a poor candidate for skin grafting due to the burns being fourth degree. The majority of the man’s limbs had been burned right down to the bone, and much of the extremities had to be amputated. His face wasn’t as badly burned, but still appeared ‘melted’ and most of the flesh on his chin and neck had fused to his chest. Guy-Manuel had no living family members to legalize advanced directives for him, so the doctor and his team had to make life-impacting decisions on his behalf instead. The accident had also left Guy-Manuel paralyzed from the chest down, his spine having been completely severed during the accident. He was no longer able to speak, his vocal chords badly damaged from smoke and fire inhalation. Also, his horribly twisted and disfigured mouth was barely able to move.

 

“Kill me,” the man begged in a strained whisper. “S’il vous plaît… kill me…”

 

…

 

The robotic human named Guy-Manuel awoke after 8 full hours of charging. He logged onto his database, ready for another day. His robotic counterpart, Thomas, was already charged and awake. There was a low robotic hum coming from Thomas’ vocalizer. This meant that the other was in the middle of processing a lot of information. He appeared to be researching something on the computer.

 

“Good morning, Thomas,” Guy-Manuel greeted the robot. “I had another dream, one where I was human again.”

 

Thomas said nothing, but ceased his humming in acknowledgement.

 

“There are a lot of things I miss about being human,” Guy-Manuel continued, a robotic sigh coming from his vocalizer. “One of them is love. Thomas…” Guy-Manuel contemplated. “Are you, as a robot, capable of love?” Guy-Manuel took the empty seat next to the other robot. He placed his left, gold metallic fingers atop Thomas’ silver ones.

 

Thomas turned his attention to the still technically human, emotional vessel seated next to him. “Love is a human right, an emotion exclusive to living beings, Guy-Man.”

 

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Guy-Manuel lamented, a long robotic ‘sigh’ coming from his vocalizer. He removed his hand from its perch atop the other’s hand, lowering his head in sadness. The truth was, his dream had been about Thomas, and the other robot falling in love with him. He knew it was a silly notion, so he buried the human emotion somewhere deep inside of the recesses of his information database.

 

Thomas turned to acknowledge Guy-Manuel again. “Strange coincidence, but human interpersonal relationships is my subject of research for the day. Perhaps you and I could do a personal study on the emotion of love. What do you suggest, Guy-Man?”

 

Guy-Manuel’s LED display turned completely red. A series of garbled ‘stutters’ followed, emitted from the robot’s vocalizer. Closed, upturned eyes appeared on Thomas’ text display, indicating amusement at Guy-Manuel’s ‘blushing.’

 

“I may not be capable of actual emotions, Guy-Man,” Thomas stated, “but I am capable of learning about them all.”

 

The red LED’s encompassing Guy-Manuel’s face display pixelated out of sight. “I-I-I…” Guy-Manuel’s vocalizer was still emitting garbled sounds. His internal processor was too overheated for his equipment to work.

 

Thomas placed a hand on his counterpart’s shoulder. “Let yourself cool down, Guy-Man, you will be okay,” he advised the other. A series of short and quick vocalizations followed, indicating laughter. A couple of vertical squiggles appeared on the face display of Guy-Manuel, indicating anger. To make his frustration appear worse, his internal cooling fan began to whirr, making Thomas ‘laugh’ some more. Guy-Manuel stood up from his seat and fled to another room. “Guy… wait!” Thomas vocalized, jumping up to follow Guy-Manuel. “What have I done wrong?” the taller robot questioned as a series of question marks scrolled across his text display. He found his shorter counterpart sitting down. He was attempting to repair a piece of electronics he’d shorted out yesterday. “I do not understand what—”

 

“And you never will, Thomas!” Guy-Manuel interjected, throwing his tools down onto the table in front of him. “You’re not human! You’re not even part human, like I am! It’s a curse, retaining all the thoughts, emotions, and feelings of my human brain!”

 

Thomas’ internal fan began to whirr. “I can, too, understand, Guy-Manuel. But I cannot sympathize… because I do not have the disposal of emotion that you do.”

 

“Understanding isn’t the same as knowing how it feels… You…!” Guy-Manuel vocalized. “You can’t feel, Thomas… only compute information… process data…”

 

Thomas remained silent, standing behind his part-human counterpart. He placed a hand on the shoulder in front of him. Guy-Manuel’s cooling fan was still whirring as he touched the forehead of his helmet to the top of the other’s. “Guy…” he vocalized. “Please, calm yourself… I do not want you to overheat.”

 

Guy-Manuel’s internal fan was still whirring almost out of control. “I’m sorry,” he apologized after a long silence. “I’ve just been so frustrated about something.”

 

Thomas moved to sit down next to his still-distraught counterpart. He reached over to interlace his silver-plated fingers with the gold ones of Guy-Manuel. He had never been human, and so didn’t have to deal with any of the human emotions Guy-Manuel still did. But he understood human nature enough to provide some form of comfort. “Speak to me,” Thomas encouraged his counterpart. “I want to know everything about you. It is my purpose, to learn every aspect of human nature.”

 

“It’s not only one thing,” Guy-Manuel admitted. “It’s several things. I blame them all on this daft thing they call emotions.” Guy-Manuel turned to the robot next to him. “Why?” he vocalized with as much agony as his robotic equipment would allow. “Why me? Why did this happen to me in the first place? Wasn’t I worthy of continuing with a ‘normal’ human life? They had to go and turn me into this… robotic… thing? Merde, Thomas! I am nothing more than a bloody science experiment!” Guy-Manuel’s cooling fans began to whirr even louder than before. “What did I do to deserve an existence such as this? I-I-I…” Guy-Manuel’s vocalizer began to malfunction and cut out. His entire facial display flashed red and then went blank, then read ‘SHUTDOWN MODE ACTIVATED.’

 

“Merde,” Thomas vocalized, standing up. He reached underneath his now-immobile counterpart’s arms, pulling the smaller figure to his feet. Guy-Manuel didn’t respond, still in the middle of shutting down. Thomas moved to carry the other in his robotic arms, needing to move him someplace safer. The smaller robot was still part human, and thus more fragile than the completely robotic Thomas. He also had more internal cooling fans than Thomas, because of the fragile organ situated inside of his helmet. Complete shutdown was normal for Guy-Manuel, and was a situation that Thomas had had to deal with many times before. Thomas returned Guy-Manuel to the recharging chambers. He lay him down on one of the recharging tables, Thomas engaging the recharging system just in case. But the whole purpose was just to get Guy-Manuel to someplace safe. A place where he wouldn’t restart and awaken in a confused state. Thomas pulled a chair up to Guy-Manuel’s side. Then he pulled down the overhead fan that served as an extra cooldown in the case of an overheating. Thomas had dealt with this before, so he knew all he had to do was wait. Thomas wasn’t worried. Well, there was always worry in his recesses somewhere. The brain was a fragile human body part after all. And overheating was a huge risk factor for Guy-Manuel in particular. Too much heat, especially for a prolonged period of time, could possibly kill his brain.

 

After awhile, Guy-Manuel’s facial display began to come to life, a series of red ellipses scrolling across as his system began to reboot. Thomas began to ready himself in the case that Guy-Manuel awoke confused. Guy-Manuel’s entire display turned red as the part-human robot completed his reboot. His display went blank again, then a red cursor blinked a couple of times. “LOGGING ON…” Guy-Manuel’s body came to ‘life’ with a start. His counterpart Thomas made a low, almost purring noise. He made the sound often to soothe Guy-Manuel, the part-human robot still in need of some forms of comfort. As an afterthought, Thomas also took hold of Guy-Manuel’s hand to let him know he was there. Guy-Manuel turned to look at Thomas.

 

“How long was I down this time?” he calmly questioned the other robot.

 

“Not long,” Thomas answered.

 

Guy-Manuel turned back to face the cooling fan above him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

 

“Guy… you have no need to apologize,” Thomas explained. “I am capable of handling the situation. It is part of my purpose, to be of service to you.”

 

“Thomas… can you… lay with me?” Guy-Manuel requested. The other robot complied, standing up to move to the recharging table. He moved himself into position at Guy-Manuel’s side, holding his arms out so that the other could move the rest of the way. They had a real bed that usually served this purpose. The part human Guy-Manuel still needed the comfort it provided. But given the situation, it was better to stay on the recharging table for the time being. “Merci,” Guy-Manuel vocalized as he moved himself into the other robot’s arms. Thomas said nothing and continued his ‘purring’ noise. In actuality, it was a low-frequency robotic vocalization. “I love it when you make that sound,” Guy-Manuel admitted to the robot holding him. A series of short, chipped vocalizations came from Guy-Manuel, a lot like light laughter. “It reminds me of a kitty.”

 

A few question marks scrolled across Thomas’ display. “A… ‘kitty’?” This confused the robot, who was not at all familiar with the term.

 

“Yes, a kitty. A youthful cat,” Guy-Manuel went on to explain. A pair of closed, upturned eyes appeared on Thomas’ display. He continued to make the ‘purring’ noise to please his counterpart. Guy-Manuel snuggled in as close as he could, the forehead of his helmet clinking near Thomas’ mouth-slot vent. The two robots continued to lay like this for some time. Guy-Manuel completely cooled and finally became functional. Had they been human, it might appear that they were cuddling. Human nerves intertwined throughout Guy-Manuel’s robotic body. It was uncertain to him if they were his own human nerves, or some sort of electronic rewiring. Equipped with nerve-like sensors, Thomas was as sensitive to touch as a human. He didn’t ‘feel’ touch, but instead computed it and registered it. Guy-Man often wished to experiment with Thomas’ ability to register touch as ‘pleasurable’. He was uncertain if the robot was even capable of such a thing. “Thomas…” wondered Guy-Manuel. “When I hold your hand… how do you feel about it?” He felt silly asking a robot if it felt anything, but with the robot’s sensors, he did in fact ‘feel’ things. He just wondered if any of it registered in an emotional sense.

 

Thomas moved his hand against Guy-Manuel’s, adjusting his grip a bit tighter. “I feel your hand against mine. I am equipped with pressure sensors, so I can tell you are holding my hand.”

 

“Not.. that…” Guy-Manuel lamented. “Do you have any… thoughts about it?”

 

“Guy… you know I do not have emotions, if that is what you are asking.”

 

“I know,” Guy-Manuel admitted with a robotic sigh. “Still… you must have some sort of thoughts about it. Do you find it wrong? Right? Anything at all positive or negative?”

 

“I think… that it is a good thing for me to be here for you and to provide you with certain needs. I have many positive computations and conclusions about our interpersonal relationship.”

 

A smiling face appeared on Guy-Manuel’s display. “That’s close enough to what I wanted to hear.”

 

The two said and did nothing for the next few minutes. Guy-Manuel’s frustrations were because the still-emotional robot had developed ‘feelings’ for his robotic partner. Love feelings. That is, he had fallen in love with Thomas. His dreams contained so many human things… he himself was human in these dreams. Thomas still appeared as a robot of course, because he had never been human to begin with as Guy-Manuel had. The whole situation was frustrating and felt somehow inevitable. Sometimes, Guy-Manuel hated his human brain.

 

“Thomas…” Guy-Manuel had finally broke the silence. “I… love… I mean, I think I… love you…”

 

The robot Thomas broke his embrace with Guy-Manuel, looking at him with question marks scrolling across his display. “Love…?” The robot questioned, unsure if that’s the term Guy-Manuel actually meant to use.

 

“Yes! Love, Thomas.” A big red heart appeared on Guy-Manuel’s display. “It means… I need you more than anything in my life.”

 

Guy-Manuel put his arms around Thomas again, the robot moving to mimic his partner.

 

“I want you more than anything in my life.”

 

Guy-Manuel tightened his grip around Thomas, the other also doing the same.

 

“I’ll miss you more than anyone in my life.”

 

Guy-Manuel’s hands roamed up and down Thomas’ back, the robot responding by doing the same.

 

“I love you more than anyone in my life.”

 

Guy-Manuel clinked the forehead of his helmet against that of Thomas, the display on the robot’s helmet turning into a series of hearts.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> I know "canonically" Thomas is the one with the brain, and Guy has a heart. I just wanted Guy to be the one with the brain, and Thomas a full robot.


End file.
